Nixon Redux
Did you see the three-hour American Experience documentary on Richard Nixon last night on PBS?
It was a good primer on all of the current elections.
I watched the first two hours and then taped the last hour, which I can watch tonight after Harper regains his minority government at 8 o'clock.
In Nixon's first two election wins, he didn't beat his opponents, he smashed them. And he did so by spreading the most ugly, hateful and untrue rumours. In his defense for using such tactics, he said that the only important thing is to win. maybe he should have coached the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Nixon had gained national prominence by chasing Communists from under every American bed, even before Joe McCarthy. In other words, his strength was to name enemies, real or imagined.
Sound familiar?
Most of you, like me, lived through the Watergate drama. I was attached to my black-and-white, rotary dial TV all summer long that year.
Looking back on Nixon's disgrace and on his earlier "triumphs," what continues to astonish me is the sight of thousands of sheep cheering madly for this creepy, evil bastard.
Much as I am astonished watching thousands of sheep cheering madly for the dumbest president in history, George W. Bush, and the worst ticket in history, McCain/Palin.
That Nixon was a brilliant, untrustworthy and unstable snake was self-evident. You had only to look at him and listen to his words and the sound of his voice and you knew you were viewing craziness.
That Bush is a dimwit and a puppet and that McCain and Palin have no business in public office is also self-evident.
What scares me is are the adoring throngs. How shallow, how desperate, how ignorant can ordinary people be?
2 comments:
David: I surfed into part of the Nixon saga and had it running in the background as I worked on my current project. There were a couple of spots in the documentary where Nixon was staring into space, that made me wonder if he really had lost his mind. I was left with an uneasy feeling that paranoid delusions have well-nigh become a prerequisite for some political leaders. While I most certainly do NOT attribute that to Stephen Harper, the condition is not unknown in Canadian politics...
Liz J.
"McCain and Palin have no business in public office"
Not to worry, Sir David. That's not going to happen, and actually, the more I consider the situation, the more I figure the powers that be in the GOP have known all along.
http://davidinnorthburnablog.blogspot.com/2008/10/republicans-know-its-over.html
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